V-J Day

Today marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of the ending of the attempt of Japan to conquer East Asia and form a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In that attempt, Japanese forces murdered some three to ten million civilians. This figure does not include civilian deaths caused from military operations which resulted from Japanese aggression or famines that ensued. It is estimated that some 20,000,000 Chinese died as a result of Japan’s invasion. Approximately a million Filipinos died during the military occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese. The video above depicts the battle of Manila in which 100,000 Filipino civilians died. During lulls in the fighting, Japanese troops would engage in orgies of rape and murder, with decapitation being a common method of killing. Special targets were Red Cross workers, young women, children, nuns, priests, prisoners of war and hospital patients.

Victory by the US and its allies brought this Asian Holocaust to a stop. Perhaps something else to recall on Catholic blogs each August.